The Koro language is an East Manus language spoken by approximately 900 people on northeastern Manus Island and on Los Negros Island to the east in Manus Province of Papua New Guinea. It is largely isolating and has SVO word order.
Phonology Koro syllable structure is CV word-internally and CV(C) word-finally. The majority of consonant phonemes can occur in onset and coda position, whereas , , and can occur only in onset position. Koro also exhibits word-final devoicing.
Consonants
+Consonant phonemes Bilabial Alveolar Post-alveolar(Palato-alveolar) Palatal Velar Glottal Plosive Labialised plosive Affricate Fricative Nasal Labialised nasal Trill Approximant Lateral approximant
Vowels
+Monophthong phonemes Front Back Close Open-mid Open
Grammar Koro is a largely isolating, head-marking, SVO language. It displays nominative–accusative alignment, with a distinction between singular, dual, and plural number in pronouns. Like many other Oceanic languages, Koro morpho-syntactically distinguishes between inalienable and alienable possession, where inalienable nouns are vowel-final, whereas alienable nouns may be consonant final, and alienable nouns but not inalienable nouns require a possessive particle ta when used in possessive constructions. There is an animacy distinction in subject pronouns. Koro uses seven sets of numeral classifiers, some of which can be used referentially (without a noun, as in the use of timou "one (people)" to refer to an individual person). The forms for "seven", "eight", and "nine" are based on subtraction from ten, as with other Eastern Admiralties languages.
References